Investigative Speaker

After digging out of nearly 2 feet of snow on Friday, today was our NHRWA monthly meeting, and they had a treat for us. Our speaker was Hank Phillippi Ryan, she is an investigative reporter for the NBC News station out of Boston, an Emmy award winner several times over along with Edward R Morrow Awards for journalism. She is also an Agatha Christie Award Winner, a Mary Higgins Clark Award Winner, and a Macavity Award Winner for her Mystery/Crime Novels.

She was great.

She compared journalism to writing fiction and showed how the technique for writing an investigative report for the news could be applied to writing any genre.

In working in the Journalism world, there is no such thing as Writers Block – so true. If you don’t make your deadline then you’re fired, plain and simple.

If you ever have the chance to hear her speak – do it! You will be so glad you did.

First Ever – I had a first. I stepped out of my comfort zone today and brought the first chapter of Along Came Neil to my writers group of for a critique. I’m so glad I did. It was like having your own personal editors. I loved the feedback that they gave me and I do plan on figuring out how I can make their suggestions work. I just won’t tackle the revision just yet. I will save their comments and suggestions for when I do the first edit. For now, I will continue writing the rest of the story and bring them one chapter at a time.

ROW80 Update:

This week I think I added over 10k words to Along Came Neil. Tomorrow I will try to hit the halfway mark at 25k words.

You know what? I’m not going to try. I’m going to do it – Goal + Deadline=Progress.

I’m not going to fire myself. Right now I want quantity and not quality. Quality comes later and will be saved for the critique.

About Linda Nelson

Full-time worker by day and a college student/writer by night. Linda is studying Business Management and Social Services while she works on her Bachelor Degree at Franklin Pierce University. Blogging when she can to keep the writing muse growing.
In 2010, Linda broke out into writing with her first Contemporary Young Adult novella, Friends of Choice which she later retitled and re-edited in 2013 to, What Karla Wants. Since then she has published two more Contemporary Young Adult novels, one of which is a Sweet Romance, and published two slipstream fantasy novels.
Linda is a member of Romance Writers of America since 2012. Watch for her coming new releases.

Kudos on taking your chapter to your writer’s group. I’m nearly at the point where I’ll be giving my writing to other people, not a stage I’ve really reached before, so I’m equal parts nervous and excited.